The Champions League anthem has become one of football’s most iconic pieces of music. It sends shivers down the spine of players and fans alike, before Europe’s finest do battle.

To celebrate its official partnership with the UEFA Champions League, Walkers Crisps recently unleashed a ‘Choir of Champions’ on the streets of three European cities, to get fans #GameReady for the defining stages of the competition.

In a very clever and feel-good guerrilla marketing stunt, a series of impromptu renditions of the classic tune were performed on buses, streets, and city squares, by the Choir of Champions – who were out in full force in Madrid, Munich and London.

Multi-city stunts

Walkers’ long-standing brand ambassador, Gary Lineker, was involved in the guerrilla campaign. To kick-start the day, the football pundit took to the London skies in a fully kitted out helicopter, which blasted out the tune to commuters below.

The helicopter landed at London’s O2 Arena, where Londoners were also given a live rendition on the ground.

In addition, commuters on a London bus were shocked when members of the choir began to sing a live operatic version of the anthem, while swinging scarves – much to the delight of the driver.

In Munich, a human statue street performer – covered from head to toe in silver paint, played the role of conductor as he led a choir in a flash mob rendition of the theme tune, in Munich’s busy Marienplatz square.

And in Madrid, a classic Spanish kiosk was secretly transformed to surprise customers as they approached. It blasted out the unmistakable anthem whilst showering them with ticker tape and glitter.

Of course, the funny sequence of events, and the reactions of those caught off guard were captured on hidden cameras, CCTV and mobile phones in each city. You can check out an edited version here.

Guerrilla greatness

The stunt was used to create a positive buzz around the Champions League, by creating spontaneous moments of fun across the streets of Europe.

This campaign had a real feel-good feeling about it – the joy of the music and surprise made people happy. This is significant, because, happiness makes us want to share. And this extends to social media sharing – the above video has been viewed 864,056 times in 6 days on YouTube.

Don’t underestimate the power of happiness!

Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact Sally Durcan on 0207 5030442 or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.

They love talking and sharing new information. This was the case at the recent Talk to Mums blog brunch in London at Bloomsbury House on Friday, 24th April where an intimate and personal networking session was held to bring mums and brands together face to face.

This invaluable face time enables everyone to understand each other goals and work out a way in which they can work together to deliver better online content and communication.

Over 4 hours the program interspersed between live speakers and 1 to 1 conversations giving everyone a good mix of talk time and listening time. Each brand had 5 minutes to disseminated 1 or 2 key messages to mums and excite them to come over to their stands and engage in a longer dialogue.

The brands in the room all represented health or happiness, with a diverse mix of brands to give variety to the digital mums in the room. Many of the bloggers attending where their in an editorial capacity to find new information to share with their readers and to develop relationships with brands and products they love and want to talk about.

How do travel PR stunts help travel companies sell vacations? With the evenings getting lighter and the trees blossoming, it’s safe to say that spring is definitely in the air, which means that summer is just around the corner. And summer means holidays!

As travel companies gear up for the holiday season, there is a lot of competition to grab consumer’s attention – and many brands have turned to wacky PR stunts to promote their deals.

With this in mind, let’s look at two of the best travel PR stunts of the year so far:

Let’s start with a question. What do Weight Watchers, Fox’s Biscuits and the Body Shop have in common? Apart from the fact that they are all well-known household brands, they are also huge advocates of high street product sampling.

And many other brands are following suit.

Despite the prevalence of low cost online advertising and e-commerce, product sampling on the high street is still a common sight. In fact it’s almost impossible to pop to the local shopping centre without being offered a free doughnut, anti-wrinkle cream or toothpaste sample.